


In My Arms, Always

by GalaxyDragon101



Series: Star Wars One-Shots Collection [2]
Category: Star Wars Original Trilogy, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, Anakin Skywalker Needs a Hug, Angst and Tragedy, Canon-Typical Violence, Could Be Canon, Emotional Hurt, Father-Son Relationship, Gen, I Made Myself Cry Just Writing This, Just Not With Disney's Fanfiction, Luke Skywalker Needs A Hug, Major character death - Freeform, Mentions of Anakin Skywalker/Padme Amidala, Mother-Son Relationship, Parallels Between Generations, Shmi Skywalker Needs A Hug, Skywalker Family Feels, Slavery, Tatooine Slave Culture, Warning: Tissues Are Recommended Beyond This Point
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-01
Updated: 2020-12-01
Packaged: 2021-03-10 04:15:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,861
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27788098
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GalaxyDragon101/pseuds/GalaxyDragon101
Summary: Dying in the arms of those they love seems to be a recurring scenario with the Skywalker family.
Relationships: Anakin Skywalker & Shmi Skywalker, Anakin Skywalker | Darth Vader & Luke Skywalker
Series: Star Wars One-Shots Collection [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2032603
Comments: 6
Kudos: 25





	In My Arms, Always

**Author's Note:**

> I was just watching the first six Star Wars films recently when I came across this interesting parallel and decided to write about it.
> 
> Also, I got a new computer recently! So expect me to begin posting more soon.
> 
> Disclaimer: I do not own Star Wars, obviously. If I did, the sequel trilogy would not be a thing. Or just not as it is now.

**23 BBY**

**Tatooine**

**Arkanis Sector**

**Tatoo System**

**~~~~  
**

” _...Now, I am complete._ ” She spoke these words in Amatakka--the secret language of the Tatooine slave community--because, in every sacred way, it is her home language, not Basic nor Huttese. 

Shmi Skywalker had known pain. It’s been a constant companion to her for as long as she could remember. She’d been kidnapped from a family she doesn’t even remember when she was very young and sold into slavery. Chains were wrapped around her limbs, restricting her to a Depur, a _Master_.

Slaves. They know pain. 

But like all slaves to make it as long as she did, Shmi was a survivor, Shmi learned to fight through the pain, like Ekkreth the Trickster, the Sky Walker.

That’s what she chose to call herself as she doesn’t remember what her birth surname was, but that’s ok, nothing is more powerful than Shmi Ekkreth, the Sky Walker. _Skywalker_.

“ _I-I lo..._ ”. Shmi’s voice wavered as she stared up into the sky blue eyes of her son. Anakin Ekkreth. Skywalker. A Slave Who Made Himself Free.

He looked at her with nothing but love and desperation. He didn’t want her to die.

” _Stay with me, Mom, everything..._ ”. He immediately began speaking his native tongue as well, although his voice hitched a bit as if he hadn't spoken it in so long.

Oh, her sweet Ani, you can’t stop change, nor death. Death gets to everyone eventually, she just hopes her little boy understands that someday.

” _I-I Lov..._ ”. Her voice was trembling and slowly fading away, she could see Ekkreth reaching towards her with his wings, calling to her to rejoin her brethren, in the afterlife. 

She had held on for as much as she could when the Tuskens kidnapped her, strung her up, and began torturing her, luckily for Ani, she was a survivor, a former slave, she knew torture.

That only egged the savages on more.

But she would hold on, she would not die without seeing her son all grown up.

Now that she had... she could let go.

Be in peace.

” _I-I love..._ ”. But she was unable to finish such a simple sentence, her will gave out, and she knew no more.

That night, Shmi Skywalker died in the arms of her son, at peace, and with her love for her family in her heart.

**~~~~**

Anakin Skywalker had never felt so... hopeless...helpless...useless...

He was _useless!_

Anakin's eyes filled with tears as he watched his mother struggle to say a simple, 'I love you' in Amavikkan, and then... she just stopped breathing....stopped.... _moving_... and collapsed into his arms.... _still...dead._ Her wounds looked awful, but, but Mom was _strong_ , you needed to be strong when you were a slave or Depur would beat you, or worst of all, separate you from your family, whether through death or sale.

Anakin knew his name meant he would 'bring the rain', but he didn't feel like the Sky Walker, _Ekkreth_ , someone who was supposed to free others, someone who would _bring the rain to Ar-Amu's children_.

All he felt like, was a failure.

He was Anakin, Ekkreth, a Jedi, the Chosen One, one who would bring the rain, balance the Force.

_So when his mother needed him, why couldn't he save her?!_

Anakin spared a glance at the hole he ripped into the tent --with his lightsaber--that had kept his mother imprisoned in this death camp, the fringes of the fabric still burned with a rim of embers.

He heard the incessant chatter of the Tuskens and the scuffling of their massifs.

Something primal, raw, animalistic, something _dark_ snapped in Anakin Skywalker, Anakin _Ekkreth_ , as his face hardened into a glare that promised murder, that promised revenge.

Revenge for the fallen. For _justice._

As his lightsaber descended upon the head of one of the Tusken Guards, all Anakin saw was the blue swathe of his 'saber splotched with red, the blood of the dead. 

The night Shmi Skywalker died in the arms of her son, Anakin gave in to his rage and took revenge, passed down judgment for his mother. Her death would forever scar the young man, and one day, it would be his downfall when he began to dream of his wife's demise.

**~~~~**

**4 ABY**

**Death Star II**

**Moddell Sector**

**Endor System**

**~~~~**

He knew he was dying.

He knew it.

And he was _ready_.

Luke. Lukka. _Lukka Ekkreth_. The Free-Skywalker was dragging his already doomed, more machine than man body towards the shuttle that had brought him and the boy aboard the doomed station, he had a look of desperation on his face, one that mirrored that of a 19-year old Anakin Skywalker more than 2 decades ago, as his mother lay dying in the young man's arms. But there was also a determined set to the blues of his eyes, one that reminded Vader--No _Anakin_ \--of the boy's mother, _her_.

Anakin did not think himself worthy of even thinking _her_ name.

He was a depukrekta. He had helped a slaver. he had forgotten, forsaken his culture, where he came from. A _keekta-du_.

he had forsaken his mother, his wife, his brother, his sister, and his children.

That was a sin not worthy of forgiveness.

So yes, he deserved to die, for all the pain and sorrow he wreathed across the galaxy. In his _depur's_ name.

Anakin felt his son's body give out under the weight of the cyborg, but the boy was undeterred. Instead, he grabbed one of Anakin's mechanical arms and dragged him along the durasteel of the Death Star. 

Officers, troopers, and other Imperial personnel were scrambling to and fro, trying to get off the very much doomed station. The sound of the battle the Empire was most definitely _losing_ reverberated throughout the hanger.

But all that was cast to the back of Anakin's mind, here, there was only himself and his son, his freeborn son who had freed him.

Anakin stopped his son's futile efforts to get him into the Lambda-class shuttle alive, it was inevitable that he would die here, and in a similar way like his mother before him.

 _On Tatooine, the child follows the_ _mother._

And wasn't that true. Anakin had been a slave, and now he would die in his son's arms, like Shmi Skywalker.

Luke held Anakin with a gentleness that was all Padme--Oh he could think her name!

"Luke, help me take this mask off." He was going to die, free of his chains because that's what the suit was. Chains that bound him to his depur.

"But you'll die!" Luke breathed with nothing short of agony on his face. Whether it was from the acknowledgment of losing his father so soon after getting him back, or from the Emperor's torture was anyone's guess.

Luke's shields were actually pretty strong.

Anakin switched from Basic to Amatakka. It was what his mother had done for him and he would do the same with his own child, even if he truly thought himself unworthy of speaking even a single word in the ancient tongue.

" _Nothing can stop that now, just for once, let me look on you with my own eyes._ " 

Luke stared into the insectoid red lenses of the accursed helmet, and whatever it was he was looking seemed to come to him as he shakily nodded, reached out, and proceeded to take off the thing which released an audible hiss as it was lifted off his head.

When the chain was lifted off of him, he could finally look upon his freeborn, beautiful, gentle, kind, and _wonderful_ child in all his glory, without the bloody red tint of the lenses.

He truly was his parents' child.

Blue against blue. So much emotion and understanding were conveyed by simple stares and the Force.

He had finally looked upon his child, as he was, just like his mother before him, and just like Shmi. Anakin could now let go.

And be at peace.

_"Now go."_

Luke also spoke with Amatakka, it was only fitting. " _No, you're coming with me, I'll not leave you here. I've got to save you."_

Anakin smiled softly and painfully as it pulled on the scar tissue around his lips. _So much like his mother_. But it was only fitting, the child takes after the mother, and Padme was free, so therefore her son was as well.

And his sister.

_(He had no claim to Leia--the Mighty One-- he had tortured her, forced her to watch her homeworld be destroyed by the first Death Star, hurt the man she loved, and hunted her down like chattel, she would never accept him calling her his daughter, and so he wouldn't.)_

" _You already have, Lukka_ _, you were right, you were right about me. Tell your sister, you were right..._ ". He would not call her daughter, for she was never his, she was Luke's sister, but never his daughter.

And with that, Anakin, like his mother before him, died in his son's arms, went slack in Luke's hold as the young man bowed his head in intense sorrow.

Anakin died at peace, and free, free at last, no longer a slave. Anakin Ekkreth made himself free, he killed his master, he was a depuskalta, not a depukrekta, for he committed atrocities in his depur's name, not his own.

**~~~~**

When his father went limp in his hold, Luke felt numb. His father, the one he _just_ got back had just passed on.

Lukka was sad, but then he remembered an old Amavikkan saying.

_Dukkra ba dukkra._

His father may be dead, but he was free.

The Alliance would have just locked him up again, and then charged him with war crimes.

Lukka was not blind, Anakin, as Darth Vader, had committed a variety of atrocities, not everyone was as forgiving or as understanding as he was after all.

So perhaps this was the better outcome. But that doesn't mean Luke wishes things could be different, that he and his father could be _free and alive and together_.

Maybe now that his childhood boogie man; Jabba the Hutt was gone, he could go back and completely liberate his and Anakin's and Shmi's homeworld from the slaver's clutches.

 _Perhaps his father might have been able to do it_ with _him_.

But Anakin was gone.

Luke felt useless and helpless, but he also _understood_.

He wouldn't dare feel _hopeless_.

The Emperor was dead and this accursed station would soon meet its end as well. Jabba was gone and his slaves were made free.

Hope was still abundant.

And with that, Lukka Ekkreth, the Free-Skywalker, dragged his father's armor, for his body had passed on into the Force, towards the Lambda, in order to truly break his father's chains.

That night, Luke Skywalker or Ekkreth, burned his father's prison, in a traditional Jedi funeral, with hope in his heart for a better future, for the whole galaxy, and for the family he has and would have with a woman who had shared the same depur as his father. One day he would share these tales with his own son, so that he too, could understand.

**Author's Note:**

> It broke my heart to write this. *Sniff*
> 
> Also, the Tatooine Slave Culture mentioned in this fic is from Fialleril's amazing worldbuilding. I totally headcanon it! But I may have butchered it a bit, if I did, my apologies.
> 
> Hope everyone is happy and healthy, and I wish you all happy holidays!


End file.
